Last Night: David Waxman @ Vinyl

David WaxmanAugust 4, 2007Club VinylBetter than:, Sweating that much for no good reason. Slide show

On a hot Saturday night made humid by drizzling rain and the sweat of hundreds of clubbers, David Waxman brought New York City to Denver at Club Vinyl. For roughly two hours he played a set of diverse, hard-charging material, ranging from old-school piano-driven house classics through state-of-the-art French electro house. The foundation of his set was dark, pounding tribal house and the aforementioned, searing electro house, but everything from a remix of Public Enemy to progressive trance got worked into the mix.

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He didn’t just play tracks; he played with them, running them through delay, flangers, filters and other effects; cutting and chopping and mangling them, at times beyond recognition. He engineered his own builds and spliced in his own breakdowns, cutting dense tracks down to almost nothing before dropping them back in hard. The results were always intriguing and frequently incredible.

The energy level started high, climbed higher, and stayed there as the crowd ate up his adventurous set and screamed for more. They responded just as enthusiastically to the hard, minimal, pulsing sections as they did to the recognizable tunes he sprinkled into the mix. The volume was punishing, with synth tones that seemed to literally cut into the ears, and bass that seemed likely to rattle the teeth right out of your head, but it felt appropriate for the set. By the time the lights came on there wasn’t anyone in the place not drenched in sweat, and dozens of people crowded forward to thank Waxman before tumbling out into the night with ears ringing and smiles plastered to their faces. --Cory Casciato

Critic’s NotebookPersonal Bias: I didn’t like everything he played – but I loved the way he played it. Random Detail: As I was shooting pictures from the DJ booth at the end of the night, as the clubbers were pressing forward to thank Waxman, some girl stopped to thank me, too. Um, you’re welcome? By the Way: This was Waxman’s first trip to Colorado. If we’re lucky, it won’t be his last.